98. Mary Furlong on the Future of Aging and Innovation in Senior Living

Matt Reiners sits down with Mary Furlong, a pioneer in the longevity and aging tech space. Mary shares her inspiring journey from writing a book to founding multiple companies and raising over $300 million to improve the lives of older adults. They explore how aging is becoming a hotspot for venture investment, discuss major demographic shifts, and highlight where real innovation is needed in senior living.

Mary also offers invaluable advice to entrepreneurs in the longevity space, stressing the importance of use-case clarity, customer insight, and long-term commitment. She emphasizes that aging adults need a compelling vision for the future, not just memories of the past.

Whether you're an innovator, investor, or provider in senior living, this episode is packed with foresight, strategy, and inspiration.

Find all of Mary's events and conferences on her website. 

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Transcript

Matt Reiners: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of Raising Tech with the famous and pioneer Mary Furlong. If you're not familiar with Mary, then you've probably been living a rock and don't know what's happening, but Mary is a. CEO and founder, an advisor to the Cabi Fund, an advisor to the Ziglar Linkage Longevity Funds.

Mary has raised over $300 million in corporate sponsorships, in venture financing, all focused on the Boomer, senior and caregiver market. Uh, she serves as an advisor to a number of startup companies and larger organizations who innovation. Seek to improve the lives of older adults. She was named one of the top 100 most influential women in Silicon Valley, and she won the first lifetime Achievement Award in Aging from Aging [00:01:00] 2.0.

So Mary, it is an honor and a privilege to host you today, and I appreciate you making some time for myself and our listeners. 

Mary Furlong: I'm so glad to be here and you make me sound older when I, after all those things, but there's such a vitality to the market. All of us that have been in it for a while are as excited about the future as ever.

Matt Reiners: Absolutely. And age is only mentality. Mary. I identify as a 12-year-old boy, which, doesn't matter how every day. That's, I still go back to that. So it is all good. And so Mary, the place I always like to start with new guest here, can you just share a little bit about your story and how did you get into the longevity market?

I. 

Mary Furlong: I wrote a book when I was very young, called Computers for Kids Over 60 for the sole reason I was at the university and I needed to publish. I was 30 at the time and I fell in love with the older adult audience and I realized that a lot of people were

inventing technologies and thinking about [00:02:00] access for young people and kids in school, but hardly anybody was thinking about older adults and technology. And so my first company was called Senior Net, a nonprofit. We had a hundred centers, first social network, even before a OL. So we were the first social network for older adults.

So I ran that company for 10 years. Then I created, an endowment through Third Age Media, which was at my second company Venture backed. It was like CBS SportsLine Market Watch. We were the lifestyle play and CBS was one of our investors. We had a real exciting company that was a media and marketing company to support the needs of third ages.

'cause we thought the Boomers didn't wanna be called seniors. Sold that to Ancestry in 2002. Started a newsletter or a conference. A podcast, a blog and just grew this business of, uh, MFA for the past 22 years. We've given away [00:03:00] $210,000. We give 10,000 every year in June to the prize winner for the best idea in longevity.

Some of those companies have become a hundred million dollars companies. And so in the course of all that, I've helped a lot of companies raise money, helped some venture groups raise money, and so we're always connecting. The dots between the entrepreneur who has the best idea, the distribution and the investors.

Matt Reiners: Yeah, I love that. And, uh, you know, just such an awesome career. And I remember like when I first started hearing of the legend of you when I, uh, joined this industry like 10 years ago or so, and, you know, you've, you've been so deeply involved in longevity in senior living, aging, right? Really everything for years.

And I'm wondering like what major shifts have you seen in how investors approach this industry today? 

Mary Furlong: I have fresh news. I was just honored to be at the National Investment Conference on Senior Living, which was an amazing conference in San Diego. And there were lots of [00:04:00] real estate players there.

And top thought leadership with Lisa McCracken, who does the analyst for the National Investment Center. And. One of the findings that was shared at the conference was that if you were looking for real estate investment from 2025 to 2035, the next 10 years, then you could. Get an investment in something that was building data centers for ai.

Right now there's the NVIDIA conference out here in California. Very hot conference. A lot of people there. So you could look at AI as an investment with these data centers, but the number two is senior housing. So my friends are now coming into their eighties, their late seventies, their eighties.

Invariably, some of them are going to need to choose to go into senior housing, and so the next 10 years, the top of the boomers turn 80 next year, and that demographic python, it's just gonna be an [00:05:00] elephant as people come into that age. So it's the future of senior housing, it's the future of home care.

It's a future of services into the home. Whether that's meals because someone's had a stroke, can't cook for themselves, someone's become a widow. So the interesting thing about demographics, they don't lie. Demographics are destiny as people say.

Matt Reiners: That's so interesting and, uh, to see that taking place.

I wish I was at that conference, but it seems like there was some really good learnings coming out of that. And you know, I think kind of the trends that I've seen, like private equity and venture capital are playing a bigger role in the senior living age tech space. Right. And I'm wondering like, what are some of the biggest opportunities and risks that come with this investment influx that I think we're gonna see if we're not seeing already 

Mary Furlong: Well.

Here's the good news. If you, every dissonance of aging is a market opportunity. So when the boomers turn 40, you're not there yet, but you'll need glasses. [00:06:00] As you get older, then it's hearing aids. So I look at the 10 years after that. If you look 10 years ahead, as my colleague Ken says, if you wanna catch an elephant.

Dig, dig a hole that's big enough for where they'll be in 10 years. So memory issues are gonna be bigger and bigger. We see a lot of innovation globally coming out of that category. Mobility issues are gonna be huge, the self-driving car is not coming soon enough, but one of our clients is Go-Go grandparent.

They've grown a very fast clip. Silver Ride's grown at a fast clip. You're gonna start to see designer canes if you haven't already. Companies that are large, like Best Buy Health has a really interesting meeting tomorrow that's open on the role they're gonna play in senior housing and home care.

You just take a look at mobility in all of its ranges and, and one in three older people end up with some form of cancer. One of the side effects of that cancer usually happens later in later life in their [00:07:00] eighties, is loss of muscle mass. Loss of muscle mass causes mobility issues. So you just begin to track anything in the wellness, fitness, a strength training area.

Really important new businesses to look at. So any chronic condition, a hundred million people have arthritis. So we have a client right now looking for funding called Good Boost out of the uk, which are using new devices inside water, aerobic classes and pools. That measures how strong you're becoming while you're in there.

Swimming. Why is water aerobics and swimming so important? It's less pressure on your body than walking. So the whole wellness fitness category, circadian light in your home. Mm-hmm. So I just talked to an exciting company this week, blue Iris, that's doing work with lighting in buildings and if someone has early stage dementia.

Is at home. What can we do already [00:08:00] there to help them stay safe so that they can sleep better?

Matt Reiners: Very important issues. And, uh, you might not think I need glasses, but I got my contacts in right now. It's, uh, 

it's 

illegal for me to drive at night without something. But, uh, yeah, I find my hearing is definitely going.

And, you know, I've had a couple knee surgeries by now, so, uh, I'll be there soon enough. Well that's, 

Mary Furlong: that's one of the hot topics at lunch with seven year olds is knee surgeries. Although I sometimes say hearing, saving a lot of marriages, the loss of hearing, but you know. But not really. I mean that, why do you see people at restaurants at five o'clock?

It's 'cause they can hear better. 

Matt Reiners: Oh, for, for sure. And, uh, hearing is definitely one of my, my passion projects in terms of, uh, even just what I saw my grandmother in last company, so we could, we could go down a rabbit hole of hearing and all that sort of stuff and what that actually looks like. But Mary, I know like, 'cause you do a lot of advisement and consulting for entrepreneurs.

I know you helped consult with us very early on in our, uh. And our journey. And I'm [00:09:00] wondering, like for aging industry focused companies that are looking to attract investment, like what key factors make a company or technology stand out to investors today? 

Mary Furlong: When they get traction in a use case, that makes sense.

There's something right now I'm working with called amba. They have a solution that helps in fall detection and prevention. If you can reduce the fall risk in your home, but also in a senior living community. What that does to the reimbursement rates that the.

Senior housing group has to pay for insurance is really important. So if someone falls in a senior housing community and then someone else falls, and then the third person falls, the families are gonna all know about this and they're gonna say, well, let's find a better solution. But if you can innovate around something like fall detection, fall mitigation then you [00:10:00] can help the senior living community with their reputation. You can help the families and you can help the staff. So anything that reduces, if you ask the Ziglar team, what would they like to see in innovation around, one of the things they'll say, and this is part of our competition this year, is assistive transportation.

You have macular degeneration as a issue in aging. So who's gonna be the driver, right? You get a knee replacement, you're out for two or three weeks without being able to drive. This is a big issue. So assistive transportation is a key, key issue. Uh, home services is a key issue, like, you don't want someone climbing a ladder.

So really when you can show the use case and what people will pay for that solution. So there that the senior housing group is incentive to pay for that because it really makes a difference in the quality of life of the older person, or it makes a difference in the bottom line [00:11:00] of the business of the senior housing community.

So one of the fastest growing areas is, um, home care. So what are people doing in the home that see these businesses becoming part of the Inc. Magazine's top growing businesses? 

Matt Reiners: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense in terms of like what we can do to not only improve that quality of life, but keep having people, giving them that freedom of in independence.

Right. And I think it's super important to see that, especially if we see these like business cases and how it can help the operators and help them to be successful. And, you know, I, I look at your career Mary, and you know, you've really had a front row seat to innovation and aging and you've hit on a couple of areas I think that.

Are shaping up to be some of the most exciting trends, but I'm wondering if like anything else comes to mind when you think of exciting trends that are shaping the future of senior living and longevity. 

Mary Furlong: Well, I think social engagement is one. So listen, [00:12:00] this is the mu. This is a group that likes to play.

They like music, they like to go to lunch. So anything that's transportation that keeps them involved and engaged. And also I think we grew up thinking we were gonna change the world. The world's changing all around us. So there's a voice in the. In the role of older people where they want to be a player in the world today,

you know, they wanna say, okay, I'm making a contribution 'cause I'm serving in this way. I have a role to play. I'm a mentor, I'm a contributor, I'm a grandmother. Probably one of the most important roles you could ever have is being a grandmother. Or you know, we need to have reverse mentors that coach us along.

But I think you've got to show the investor that you understand that customer better than anyone else. And that solution is easy to use. And they will use it. And they will use it every day. I mean, [00:13:00] take a look at what's happened with gets out up in New York. There are at over a million people using get set up to learn new skills in the state of New York.

So Greg Olson, Lawrence Kasick doing amazing work. Same thing with intuition Robotics here. It's a robot in your home in New York getting scaling. Same thing with ageless innovation, providing joy through that companion pat. There's a loneliness that I haven't solved, mm-hmm. Mother Teresa went back to work on poverty, but she said loneliness is a bigger problem to solve.

Many older people are stuck watching television in that new Netflix movie, where Ted Danson shows the difference between being at home or being in senior housing. There's a new study that just came out how the communities are forming in senior housing, but I'm very much interested in Robert Putnam and his book, bowling Alone, his new book about what are the informal ways that we can [00:14:00] build community.

I belong to a book, GR group, a water aerobics club, my alumni group, my little French bakery chat group on Wednesdays. We're all at home a lot, and this need to connect is more and more present. It doesn't go away. It's more acute and heaven help us. If we lose friends or family members, that makes it even worse.

So then you have to cultivate these new friendships and senior living has to, if you look at the images of how senior living shows itself in the media, people are always smiling, always having fun. There's karaoke, there's all these other things. We have to find new ways for older people to engage in our culture, and I see a lot of innovation around that.

Matt Reiners: Yeah. Yeah, I've, I remember seeing all the studies and I think the, you know, when the pandemic took place, it really just, it, you know, it, it added gasoline to that loneliness thing. We saw all this [00:15:00] information and data coming out of what that social isolation can do to us and that loneliness, and it's been pretty amazing to see when you're being proactive and doing that.

When I think of like senior living, giving the, the space and the opportunities for people to make new friends, make these new relationships, have these shared experiences, and I'll tell you, Mary, you've got more of a social life than me, so I need to pick it up. Up over here.

Mary Furlong: Oh, look at what you did with Ever sound, the smile on people's faces when they could hear so, so many people are isolated because they've got.

Tendonitis or they can't hear. I mean, I had Guy Kawasaki as a keynote speaker last year, amazing speaker is a little bit of tendonitis. He shared with the audience, every single person wanted to talk to him. We were at the yacht club. He went outside. So one by one people went to talk because it's hard to have an event if people can't hear.

Yeah. So we have to look at these issues and there's nothing more that brings a smile on our face as someone who, who is. Now back in the game. So [00:16:00] be there for your friends. Go out there and visit them. Katherine Hepburn used to say, I just go and visit my friends that are ill and they're gonna come see you too.

You have to really dedicate your time to spend with those people. But friendship and mitigating loneliness, you could take it in every part of our culture and bring back the bowling alleys, bring back the game. Watch games, you know. Bring back the community volunteerism. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah. I love that. I love that.

And you know, I know Mary, when we were doing our prep call, there was something you had said that, uh, has really resonated with me, and I've thought about it a few times since we've talked, but you said, quote, older people need a vision of the future, not just a memory of the past end quote. I feel like you need to put that on a t-shirt or something, or run with that.

But I'm wondering like what you, when you think about it, like what does the future look like to you in terms of technology and quality of life for older adults? I. 

Mary Furlong: I love that quote. It was from the White House Conference on [00:17:00] Aging. I went to four White House conferences on aging. They were pretty fun and we tried to accomplish a lot.

I don't know if they're going to do a new White House conference on aging. That's still to be determined. But I have a friend who, uh, had a very big position at A-R-P-I-I heard just today that she's changing her role. I'm going to reach out to her. See what she's planning to do next. So people don't wanna talk about what they did before.

They wanna talk about what they're looking forward to doing, what is the adventure, that's the next adventure that they're going to have, and where are they gonna invest their time to get more purpose. Now they may not have as much physical energy. They need to know that they have to have a mosaic in their life.

That puts working out and seeing the right doctors, eating right and then providing the socialization, but. [00:18:00] Everybody wants to feel that they're still in the game. And why wouldn't you wanna know about ai? If that can enhance your life and make the letters of recommendation you write, or the way you engage with people, why?

Why wouldn't you wanna know? I heard that Care Yaya just did a really interesting. Post about how to use AI to help people write letters of recommendation as they're applying for jobs, as they graduate as grandparents. Why wouldn't one wanna share that to the people we know that are trying? So we have to stay in the game to stay relevant to the young people in our lives.

And then we need reverse mentors. So anything in an intergenerational capabil, uh. Context, I think could also work. But we need to go back and talk a little bit about the business model. As you know, if the entrepreneur doesn't have the right business model, they need to pilot. Iterate it till they find the right customer, 'cause [00:19:00] companies.

Are going to go to market in eight or nine channels, they're gonna go internationally. Sometimes it could be a nonprofit government agency in Europe that has a very old population that will just license your product first, like Care Daily in Belgium. That product's being licensed in Europe. Or we see deal flow from Japan.

Right now. There's a company looking for funding that can restore hair and 

Matt Reiners: what can be telling me that Mary can be dropping that bomb on me. 

Mary Furlong: No, but I'm just saying you, you want to, uh, you wanna have the best sources of deal flow and then you wanna choose the right opportunities as you get older. And I think you don't have time to waste, so you have to choose the right kind of people to hang out with, mm-hmm. We just decided here yesterday to start a local. Age tech group that meets in the East Bay, and I think it's going to be like a really important group because we'll have [00:20:00] hospitals, home care entrepreneurs and investors. 

They're in their home offices, so why not just kind of invent things, let's say let's get out together and collaborate a little bit more.

Matt Reiners: I love you guys are taking that approach, um, and getting everybody there. Right. I think to your point about the home office like getting people out, collaborating, you know, figuring out what that business model is, and I find you can't really figure that out.

Like the only thing you can really do is maximize conversations, right? With like your end user or who could potentially buy to figure out if there's actually a problem there, like what that could actually look like. So like, getting out there you know. Being vulnerable, asking those tough questions and trying to figure it out as you're trying to build that.

And you know, Mary, it's, it's no surprise, right? Like you've built and advised countless companies in this longevity space. I'm wondering like, what are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned, uh, along the way? 

Mary Furlong: One lesson is always have the best people around the table, the best investors, the smartest, the ones who listen, the ones that are gonna be there in [00:21:00] the tough times.

That's the most important thing. Second thing, if you think you've got the wrong person around the table on your team, and you tell yourself three times, I've got the wrong person, get rid of that person. Okay, fire fast and, and say goodbye. If there's a misfit, but you think you could tweak it, then fix it so you could keep them on your team.

I pride myself in, even in this company, I've had people with me for 10 years. One of them was a caregiver for 40 years who took care of her mother till she was 102. She cares deeply about what we do with our clients, so you've gotta have the right team members and you should always upgrade. I really pride myself when someone gets downsize or chooses to leave a job.

I like to be the first phone call animal, so I have people already from the government that are calling me every single day to help place them in companies. I really like to be agile and when someone's in a hallway in between companies, that's when you need to be there for them because you [00:22:00] remember the people that were there for you in the hallway.

And then they'll constantly, you know, you should always, as an entrepreneur say, what can I do for you? Not what is it you can do for me? And another thing you do, you have to sometimes, like on Shark Tank, when they say, take it outside and shoot it, no, it's not gonna work. You have to say, this company at this phase is only gonna grow this far.

So I've gotta pivot into this space, or here's where I wanna be. But you also have to know personally where you wanna be. How many days do you really wanna work? How hard do you wanna work? What's going to be expected If you, if you go into that sharpen your use case. That is really important advice. So get people co-creating with you outta senior community in senior housing, in home care, where every week you're refining that use case because use case could be something that you don't know, mm-hmm. A friend of mine had a [00:23:00] stroke. He's out of senior housing back at home. His daughter called me, wanted to know what meal plan could I. Could I recommend? Well, there's a company I'm an advisor to called Chefs for Seniors. Started by someone who had a restaurant and seniors came in and then they asked for food to go.

So meal delivery is a huge opportunity. This, um, this other company, I knew someone started a meal company and they were gonna first make meals for. For kids, they were gonna make chicken pot pie for kids. Turned out kids wanted pizza and they didn't eat at the same time every day. Older adults pretty much eat the same time every day.

So your idea for the longevity market doesn't have to be huge and venture backable, it could be a service that you provide in the community that's immensely important to the people you're serving because a lot of it is local. But I think a mistake that I see people make is they over-engineer their product.

They don't [00:24:00] get it out to market soon enough, and they don't tweak the product as they go along. So on our podcast now, we're working with a couple sponsors where every month we can show a no use case of that product, and your customers are gonna push you to those use cases, right?

Mm-hmm. So I think that we need to spend more time understanding the customer, the customer's pain point, and then innovating around that. And then fashion is important. Looking good, feeling good, smiling, good lipstick. All those things are important and there's a lot of innovation to happen in skincare, healthcare, eye care.

Home care and financial services. It's not one channel into the market. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah. So much wisdom there. Uh, Mary and I, you know, I think that one of the things that resonated with me, like you had touched on, like getting that feedback from the client. I've seen too many entrepreneurs that won't really take that feedback seriously, but I feel like [00:25:00] from an entrepreneur standpoint, like that's the most valuable.

Piece of anything really, like how do people wanna see the product work, the service work, and kind of crafting it to how they see it work. And I know like we were able to do things on the fly and like really just grow things based on ideas that were coming from our partners. And I think too many times people attach their egos to their product and their service and are afraid to, uh, adjust things.

And I just find that, you're gonna set up for failure every single time. It's just not gonna, it's not gonna work in the long run if you're gonna do that. 

Mary Furlong: And you're, you made a really important point about partners. So we've recently talked to Samsung Health. We're privileged to have the A-A-R-P-H Tech Collaborative as a partner.

Your partners can inform a lot of your thinking. So I you, I remember, and you remember when the internet just got started, that's when I became a digital entrepreneur with Senior Net. It was not about longevity, it was more about are you inventing around the internet? So there were a lot of iterations, a lot of failures, [00:26:00] right.

During the internet economy. I stayed in longevity and digital services for a long time. So the innovation is gonna be there. There are many, many more people coming into the market now. That's probably the most important thing I lead your audience with. So we're seeing new venture funds from Asia, interest in the Middle East, interest in Europe.

Why? It's a global aging trend. It's a global demographic. What are the common things? They have pain points. You need to know what they are. They also have. Joy and opportunities they want to find out about and, um, they have financial needs if you solve around those key areas, you're gonna win, especially if you get the right partners to take you forward and your right partner might be local, it might be moving to Indiana as one of our clients recently did, getting local groups around there.

To adopt and support and grow the product. As Steve Case says in [00:27:00] his book, the Rise of the Rest, there's a lot of innovation happening all over and one of the biggest challenges for older people, a lot of the services are in remote communities. Mm-hmm. So the Chefs for Senior Solution, I think that is great, but it's, it's gotta be in every community.

Matt Reiners: That's a great, great call. And you know, I love when I hear stories of people moving to be closer to their partners to try and figure that out. 'cause you know, too many times, right, like it's might be easier to connect in a digital world, but if you really want something to be successful, you need to go there and be in person, especially to see some of these things be implemented and and ha and be and be sticky too, right?

And continue use of it. And then my, my second to last question here for you, Mary, is, uh, if you could give one piece of advice to entrepreneurs and leaders working to shape the future of aging, uh, what would it be? 

Mary Furlong: I think it would be, be prepared for a long ride. That it's gonna take, like Sher when it took 12 years to create care links and [00:28:00] find the right home for it. So be prepared for the long journey, but know that the journey is part of the reward because the joy you're going to bring to the people like

jack York, who's driving 100 year olds around to celebrate their birthday in his new company tailgate. Let them tell their story on their birthday. The joy you get from changing someone's life changes your life. So the joy I get from watching these innovations bring smiles on people's faces.

Or keep them safer longer, or keep them more connected with other people. That's the joy that you're going to get. So it's worth it. Don't my new book, which with a revision, my old book, turning Silver into Gold. The Silver is the money you can Make. The gold is the good work you could do. The good feeling you have by saying, I changed someone's life.

Matt Reiners: Hmm. I love that. I love that. I mean, I love this [00:29:00] industry 'cause it's, it's like business with soul, right? Like, you can do so many different facets of business and just feel good at the end of the day and improve quality of life for people. It's just, it's what it's all about. Um, and then my, my last question for you, Mary.

I know you had mentioned your conference, but where can people learn more about you, about your conference? We have a lot of listeners. I'm sure , they would love to learn more about that. 

Mary Furlong: You can find everything@maryfurlong.com, all of our podcasts and newsletters and things like that. I'm glad to help anybody. And also for the investors out there, I invest now and work with the you. You won't find any more dedicated entrepreneurs and the, the culture of the entrepreneurs and the investors in their space, they're all willing to help each other.

Matt Reiners: I would agree. Awesome. Well, Mary, it's been an honor and a privilege. This is like one of my bucket list items to interview you, so thank you for allowing me to check that and, uh, appreciate your time today. Oh, so 

Mary Furlong: fun. Yeah. You're my reverse mentor. Uh, okay. You take care. Thank you everybody. 

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